


Blood Red Flags

by Sophia_Bee



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:08:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25599313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Bee/pseuds/Sophia_Bee
Summary: 2018. Andy and the boys take on a job that leads to big changes for their little family, aka Andy is angry, Booker is sad, Nicky and Joe always have each other.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 6
Kudos: 125





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to my eternal beta, **Leafeylocket** who is riding this ship with me. Love you, dearest. 
> 
> This is set one year before the movie and I'm just sticking the movie in pre-pandemic 2019 for some pretty small plot reasons. It has some comic elements as well.
> 
> I am always and will always be completely devoid of creativity when it comes to tags, so just know its kind graphic when it comes to killing, a bit sexy but not porny. I'll try to add them as I think of them..

**2018...Syria**

Andy

Fucking noble causes.

Noble causes lost meaning centuries ago. Yet here she is, standing in the fucking desert about to do something fucking noble. 

Andy hates this. Yet she can’t stop. She hates that too. Andy shoves her hands into her pockets and slouches even further. She shifts a little, just enough to feel the weight of her labrys on her back. A small strand of tension she didn’t even know she was carrying unravels at the familiar feel of it. She takes in a deep breath and is met by the smell of heat and sand. 

Fucking sand. 

The gritty feel of it in her mouth is so familiar she almost can’t feel it anymore. Andy swipes her tongue around her mouth, spits onto the ground. The sand is still there. It always is. Sometimes Andy thinks she might find centuries old sand tucked into the cracks and creases of her thousands of years old body. A lot of bad people do bad things in places with a lot of sand. At least that’s been her experience. Andy fucking hates sand. 

She spits again. 

The sun is blazing, relentless, washing away all the colors until the landscape is washed in monochromatic sepia tones that blur the edges of everything. It’s not much different than being at sea and staring out across the ocean. Andy feels queasy for a moment then it passes. She hates the sea more than the endless drifting sand. Thank god they can fly these days. She doesn’t miss months-long voyages with the ocean stretching out in all directions, an endless watery grave waiting to swallow her alive. An endless reminder of what she has lost. 

_...you’re just a fucking ball of anger these days, Andromache..._

Andy lifts her hand and shades her eyes, more out of habit than anything else. It does nothing to lessen the glare. She squints at the horizon. Watches. Waits. She hears the scuff of a boot behind her. A sharp intake of breath. She knows who it is before he speaks. That’s what centuries of togetherness brings. Centuries of practice. 

“Book.” She says his name like an afterthought, still staring into the distance. 

“Boss,” he answers tiredly. 

Andy’s mouth twists into a small frown at the sadness in his voice that never seems to go away. He’s the young one. The hundred-something year old baby of the group. He wears his loss etched all over his face. His eyes have a melancholy that never seems to fade. She glances over at him, takes in his profile, and she knows that what he wants more than anything is to die. 

_...Welcome to the fucking club…_

Booker had stayed in his old life too long, watching as the world moved forward while he stayed still. If only they’d found him sooner. Andy silently curses at the months it took to get anywhere back then, the fucking years it took to find each other, and all the god damn damage it caused. Not that the modern world’s proximity is much better. It has its problems too. Fucking cellphones. But at least there are planes. Andy bites at her lip and makes the same silent promise she’s made a million times over. They will get to the next one fast. They will spare them this pain. She will protect them before they can get hurt like Booker. 

“When will he get here?” 

“Soon.” Andy lies. She has no fucking idea.  
center>Andy 

Fucking noble causes. 

Noble causes lost meaning centuries ago. Yet here she is, standing in the fucking desert about to do something fucking noble. 

Andy hates this. Yet she can’t stop. She hates that too. Andy shoves her hands into her pockets and slouches even further. She shifts a little, just enough to feel the weight of her labrys on her back. A small strand of tension she didn’t even know she was carrying unravels at the familiar feel of it. She takes in a deep breath and is met by the smell of heat and sand. 

Fucking sand. 

The gritty feel of it in her mouth is so familiar she almost can’t feel it anymore. Andy swipes her tongue around her mouth, spits onto the ground. The sand is still there. It always is. Sometimes Andy thinks she might find centuries old sand tucked into the cracks and creases of her thousands of years old body. A lot of bad people do bad things in places with a lot of sand. At least that’s been her experience. Andy fucking hates sand. 

She spits again. 

The sun is blazing, relentless, washing away all the colors until the landscape is washed in monochromatic sepia tones that blur the edges of everything. It’s not much different than being at sea and staring out across the ocean. Andy feels queasy for a moment then it passes. She hates the sea more than the endless drifting sand. Thank god they can fly these days. She doesn’t miss months-long voyages with the ocean stretching out in all directions, an endless watery grave waiting to swallow her alive. An endless reminder of what she has lost. 

_...you’re just a fucking ball of anger these days, Andromache..._

Andy lifts her hand and shades her eyes, more out of habit than anything else. It does nothing to lessen the glare. She squints at the horizon. Watches. Waits. She hears the scuff of a boot behind her. A sharp intake of breath. She knows who it is before he speaks. That’s what centuries of togetherness brings. Centuries of practice. 

“Book.” She says his name like an afterthought, still staring into the distance. 

“Boss,” he answers tiredly. 

Andy’s mouth twists into a small frown at the sadness in his voice that never seems to go away. He’s the young one. The hundred-something year old baby of the group. He wears his loss etched all over his face. His eyes have a melancholy that never seems to fade. She glances over at him, takes in his profile, and she knows that what he wants more than anything is to die. 

_...Welcome to the fucking club…_

Booker had stayed in his old life too long, watching as the world moved forward while he stayed still. If only they’d found him sooner. Andy silently curses at the months it took to get anywhere back then, the fucking years it took to find each other, and all the god damn damage it caused. Not that the modern world’s proximity is much better. It has its problems too. Fucking cellphones. But at least there are planes. Andy bites at her lip and makes the same silent promise she’s made a million times over. They will get to the next one fast. They will spare them this pain. She will protect them before they can get hurt like Booker. 

“When will he get here?” 

“Soon.” Andy lies. She has no fucking idea.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two weeks ago…Rome**

Andy

Down time. For Andy that usually means a lot of booze and even more fucking random people. Right now it means slouching on the cracked vinyl kitchen chair in the rundown Rome safe house staring at a mostly empty bottle of vodka trying to ignore her pounding headache. Book is slouched across the table from her pushing food around his plate. He always cooks when he’s feeling homesick. This time it’s his mother’s recipe for chicken piccata. Booker had clunked the plate in front of Andy and she’d sniffed at it, trying to ignore the way her stomach heaved and wished not for the first time or the last time that immortals were immune to hangovers. Now it sits half eaten in front of her.

Joe and Nicky are doing what they always do when they have the luxury of actual bedrooms with doors. The moment the team had tumbled wearily into the flat they’d disappeared behind one of those doors, occasionally emerging looking tousled and unkempt to grab food, before returning back behind the door. It usually took a couple days for them to emerge. This time they were on three days and counting. 

Andy had been annoyed at Nicky and Joe at first. There was something about them that she couldn’t quite understand. They acted as if no one else existed most of the time, wrapped up in each other in a way that kept them from connecting to the world, including her. Maybe because it had been just the two of them from the beginning. It grated on her, reminding her too much of what she’d lost, of Quynh. Slowly she’d grown to understand, to see how a million lifetimes left them with only each other, even if she was there too. 

One memory is burned into her brain. 

It was a long time ago. Or maybe it was just yesterday. When you live for thousands of years time has a funny way of sometimes standing still and other times rushing along in the same way flash floods do, pulling up everything around it, until you can’t recognize that it’s the same world you were living in just yesterday. 

It was somewhere in the deep, dark woods of North Carolina. Trees loomed above them, stretching towards the sky, the smell of loamy earth filled her nostrils. The three of them had been traveling through wilderness for days and had stopped to make camp for the night. Andy was bone-weary and all she wanted was to curl up under her bedroll and sink into a hopefully dreamless sleep. 

The log she leaned against was rough against her back, the small campfire warmed her blistered feet, yet her arms were chilled by the cold night night air. The short hair under the Continental army cap she wore did nothing to keep her warm, and the tightly wrapped with muslin that bound her breasts under the homespun shift she wore under her dirt-smeared waistcoat made her itch. Andy’s blue army issue coat was on her lap and she absently picked at a tear a musket ball had left in the elbow, rubbing the rough fabric between her fingers. To her left was the musket she carried so she’d blend in. To her right was her labrys. Her mouth tasted of blood, her stomach roiled. 

They would camp overnight and move in the misty morning light, silent as ghosts. In the meantime they’d been foraging for food; everyone was hungry. Immortals still had stomachs. They should be near the village of Cowpen, a muddy, stinking hovel no different than all the other muddy stinking hovels Andy had ever seen. 

They’d sailed to the Colonies when word of war had come. They were warriors. If there was a fight, Andy, Nicky and Joe went. They joined the revolution, blended into the continental army. Those were easier times. The myriad of ugly and disfiguring ways one could die in battle have increased one hundred fold since then. The fact that they did not die had become more obvious. Back then there was more risk of infection than there was of having your gut blown open or your head ripped off. No one noticed that the three of them never seemed to go down after being hit. They fought hard, saved lives, until Washington and his army looked as if they would defeat the British. Then they’d walked away, just like they always did, disappearing into the ether, barely leaving a trace of memories behind. 

That was how they’d ended up on the outskirts of Cowpen, half starved, enveloped in darkness, sitting in silence, waiting…. The New World carried a strange kind of loneliness brought by too much open space and too few people. 

Andy leaned forward and warmed her cold hands over the fire as it popped and crackled. It cast a ring of light and beyond that ring was an unbroken night. Nicky sat opposite of her, staring into the fire, perfectly still. Joe had offered to go steal some food. Nicky had said he would go with him and Andy had cast him a look that said she did not approve. That was all it took. She was the leader. They lived by her word and they would die by it if they could. Nicky hadn’t spoken since Joe had left. He sat across from her, staring into the fire, occasionally looking up and glancing out into the darkness, watching and waiting. 

“He’ll be back,” Andy had finally said. Her words were testy and irritable, betraying her annoyance at Nicky’s melancholy over such a small separation. She had no tolerance for it. Not after what she’d gone through. Not after what she’d lost. Nicky had looked up at her, his eyes sharp, his mouth pinched in anger, and Andy immediately regretted how her words had betrayed her thoughts. She opened her mouth to apologize, to tell Nicky she didn’t mean it. She never got the words out. Maybe it was the pain on his face. Maybe it was the kindness that lay there too. Maybe it was the fact that Nicky could speak truth in a way that cut through all her own pain and regrets. Nicky didn’t talk much, and when he did it was almost always to Joe, a stream of Italian, his eyes warm, his mouth dropping kisses onto Joe’s fingers between words. It never ceased to make Andy ache, make her miss what she’d once had. Now he was talking to her, his voice soft and low. She suddenly knew why Joe would love this man for an eternity or more. 

“He’s going to die someday.” 

Andy’s eyes shifted from from Nicky’s face to the dancing flames and before she could stop it, the same mantra she’d been saying for centuries spilled out. 

“Everybody dies…”

“No, Andromache.” Andy stilled at the use of her full name. Nicky’s voice was sharp with fear. “I will lose him.” 

Andy’s gut twisted at Nicky’s words. She knew how it felt to lose someone. She had squeezed her eyes shut, pushed away the image of that iron coffin and the sound of Quynh’s screams.

_...I never lived like I might lose you. When I did, the pain was unbearable..._

Andy opened her eyes and looked at Nicky again. His face was etched with the pain of what might be and suddenly Andy felt like she'd been hit by a boulder. That was the moment she knew why Nicky would not rest until Joe was back and safe. She glanced away. Her chest clenched with anguish for the man sitting across from her and tears pricked at her eyes. 

She had been alone. Nicky and Joe never had. They had never faced an endless existence without each other. 

“I will lose him and I will want to die but I won’t be able to. I will know for all eternity that my face was not the last thing he saw.”

Andy swallowed hard at Nicky’s words, noticing her mouth had grown as dry as a bone.

“My face must always be the last thing he sees before he dies and the first he sees when he wakes up.”

_...God…_

Andy had rubbed a hand through her hair, knocking her cap off as she tried to ignore the deep pain in her gut at Nicky’s words. It was the pain sprung from the overwhelming grief over what she had lost to the darkness of an uncaring ocean followed by the shame that she had unknowingly caused these two men, her _family_ such pain. She knew what she would tell him but she couldn’t bring herself to utter the words. Not after Nicky’s confession. Not when she finally understood.

_...When the time comes you will survive. I did…_

Andy never sent either of them out without the other after that. 

This is why Andy doesn’t complain about locked doors. Because no matter what the situation, Nicky always looks for Joe, always makes sure that he is there when he dies and when he wakes. This is why she puts up with sappy bullshit like how they whisper words in ancient, almost forgotten Ligurian to each other. It’s why she tolerates the annoying way Joe sometimes stops talking when Nicky walks into the room and ignores how they sleep curled together every chance they get, from dingy safehouses to abandoned warehouses. She never complains because Andromache knows what it feels like to live on borrowed time, even if that time stretches over centuries. She knows what it feels like to still not have enough of it. And she knows what it feels like to love those two enough to let them be who they need to be. 

Andy shakes her head a little, pushing away the memory. Fucking Nicky and Joe. 

As if on cue, Joe emerges from the bedroom, coming up behind Andy stinking like sleep and sex, and wearing only a sheet wrapped around his waist. He laughs, a deep rumbling happy sound, and says something about needing to get some sustenance. Andy leans her head back, resting it against Joe’s bare abdomen, his skin warm against the back of her head. She looks up at him and smiles. 

“How about some clothes, asshole.” 

“No point.” Joe shrugs and smiles _that_ smile, a warm quirk of his mouth that Andy has figured out over the years means he’s thinking dirty thoughts about Nicky. Her eyes follow Joe as he leans over her and picks up a piece of Book’s chicken with his fingers then pops it into his mouth. 

“Nicky makes it better,” Joe grins across the table at Booker. Booker makes a half serious frown back at him. He crosses his arms across his chest. 

“No one makes it better than ma mère, idiot.” 

“Boys!” Andy says sharply. They both turned to look at her. “Enough.” She glances up at Joe standing over her and a grin slowly spreads over her face. “Maybe we’ll see you and Nicky soon,” Andy murmurs, her eyes dancing with amusement. “I know we can’t die from fucking but it seems you two are trying.” 

Joe doesn’t miss a beat. He smiles back at Andy then leans down and whispers into her ear. His words are quiet but not so quiet that Booker can’t hear. 

“Not until I’ve written at least three erotic poems about Nicky’s gorgeous cock, Andy. I write very…” Joe pauses for just a second for emphasis. Andy’s eyes roll up in her head. “...VERY slowly.” 

“Ooohhhhhhh!” Andy screws her face into an exaggerated look of disgust as her hands fly up to push Joe away from her. She hears a snort of laughter come from the open door of the bedroom. “Fuck you.” 

Joe leans over her as he picks up her discarded fork and stabs it into another piece of Book’s chicken piccata.

“I thought Nicky’s was better” Booker drawls, a smirk on his face. 

“Nicky is better at everything,” Joe tosses over his shoulder as he turns and walks back into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him with a click. Andy glances at Book then rolls her eyes. She picks up the remote to the TV and switches it on. Anything to distract from the toothache she gets on a regular basis from dealing with those two. A newscast is on, some talking head spewing out something in Italian. Syria. A hospital. Andy might have ignored it except now there were kids on the screen. Their faces white from dust. A woman was looking at the camera. Pleading. Andy watches her. Her eyes narrow and her lips press together. Across the table Booker stops eating and watches her. 

_...shit…_

“Andy….” Booker’s voice is full of warning. She knows why. They just got back. They needed rest. This is not the time. They can’t keep doing this. It’s inhumane.

Andy squeezes her eyes shut, trying to block out the images. Walk away, she tells herself. Just let the world blow itself up. None of it matters anyway. They keep fighting and dying and healing, and it changes nothing. She opens her eyes and stares at the TV. Stares at the child on the screen. How many times has she seen that look. She knows it so well. Terror. Andy turns and looks at Booker. He looks back at her. They both know.

“Fuck this shit. Get me your contact in Syria,” Andy spits out just as Booker picks up his phone. 

“No problem, boss.”


	3. Chapter 3

Booker

Booker wants to die. 

He’s wanted to die pretty much since the moment he didn’t, hanging from that god forsaken rope in that god forsaken country, the snow pelting him, his whole body numb. 

He should have died. 

Booker runs a hand through his hair as he paces back and forth across the tiny rundown flat that serves as their safe house in Rome. Sunlight streaks across the floor, lighting up the dust kicked up in Booker’s wake. The others watch him as he clenches and unclenches his fist. 

The plan is insane. He’d been down with it when he thought they’d be saving a bunch of kids. He’s not okay with this new plan. Maybe not new. He knows Andy. It was probably this plan all along. 

“Fucking Russians, Andy. It never goes well when it’s the fucking Russians.”

Booker should know. He might not be here if it wasn’t for the fucking Russians and the fucking Russian winter. He hates the Russians. Nothing good ever comes from getting involved with them.

“They shouldn’t be bombing hospitals.” 

Andy’s voice is calm, uncompromising. She’s decided. It’s his job to follow. Booker wanted to plant his face in his palm because of all the people who would bomb a hospital full of kids it would be the fucking RUSSIANS. And he knows Andy is right. 

Joe is leaning against the door jam. He’s shirtless, jeans low on his hips, hair sticking up every which way. Nicky stands next to him, close, almost leaning against him. Their heads tilt slightly towards each other almost imperceptibly. It’s a familiar stance; Booker has seen it time and time again. Both men’s eyes follow Booker as he strides back and forth, back and forth. 

He’s so tired. 

“Did your guy set us up?” Andy’s face is passive as she watches him. She’s standing over a black backpack on the grimy kitchenette table, packing gray blocks of explosives into it. Booker slows his frenetic movement long enough to punch the thirty year old ice box hard enough to leave a dent. His fist cracks and he screams in pain, it’s followed by a familiar sharp tingle as whatever damage he did heals. 

“You are acting like a child,” Joe spits out. He lunges forward but Nicky’s hand comes up, stops him. Joe glares at him, his chest heaving. “You think you’re the only one who has suffered… that we should not take others’ suffering into account? That we should not try….” 

“Joe,” Nicky says quietly. Booker sees Joe relax slightly at Nicky’s voice. Nicky turns to look at Booker. 

“We should try, Book.” Nicky’s voice is quiet. His eyes steady. God damn Nicky, God damn moral compass. Booker glares are him. No. They shouldn’t try. They should walk away. _HE_ should walk away. Booker’s hand curls into a fist, his nails dig into his palms. 

If it was just Andy, he could convince her. 

Nicky, Joe, they don’t understand. They don’t live with the same pain Booker lives with. A pain there is no way to relieve. But Andy. She understands. Sometimes Booker watches her when she doesn’t realize his eyes are on her and he sees it. It’s in her eyes, the grim set of her mouth, the way she holds herself. It's in the way she fucks and drinks like there’s no tomorrow. Booker knows that pain. It's the pain one gets from leaving loved ones behind 

He dreams of his son. Too often. Every time, he begs Booker to save him, his face lined with age Booker would never know. He begs his father to give him the gift of immortality. _...Gift..._ The thought almost makes Booker huff out a laugh. His son did not really want this hell. His son is at rest in the arms of death, a rest that will elude Booker for God knows how long. Booker had spared him, but his son would never know that. 

He misses him. He will never stop. The regret of everyone he has left behind gnaws at his gut and seeps into his dreams, tormenting him until the only thing that chases the feelings away is whiskey and lots of it. Andy understands. She carries the same regret.

“Andy,” Booker says again, his eyes meeting hers, his voice pleading. She looks back at him, holds his gaze. “I…” His voice fades away. He doesn’t want to say it. Not here. Not in front of Nicky and Joe. 

_...I can’t do this. Not anymore. I can’t keep living like this. I can’t…_

“Book.” Andy’s voice is soft, gentle. She lifts a hand and gestures towards Nicky who nods back at her. Booker watches as Nicky’s hand goes to clasp Joe’s, their fingers lacing together. 

“Get dressed,” Nicky murmurs, glancing once more at Andy, “We need more ammo. The Russians will be well armed.” Joe glances at Booker, then Andy, then he nods at Nicky. There will be no more arguing. Five minutes later the pair are gone, leaving silence in their wake and Booker still standing in the middle of the small kitchen, his hand smarting. Andy brushes past him to reach to the top of the fridge and take down a half gone bottle of whisky. 

“Glasses.” 

Booker turns to the cabinet behind him and grabs two scratched and chipped glasses that have seen better days then sets them on the table. He watches as Andy fills each about a third with the amber liquid. She drops into one of the chairs, picks up one of the glasses, lifts it to her lips, swallows the whole thing in one gulp, then sets it down on the table. She looks at Booker then gestures for him to sit down across from her, sliding the other glass towards him. He sits down and picks up the glass and swirls the liquid around, but he doesn’t drink. 

“I’m tired Book.” 

Andy’s mouth twists, as if this truth is hard to say aloud. She’s the boss, their leader. Leaders do not tire. Leaders keep going when the odds are against them, and Booker has watched Andy do that time and time again. This is why they look to her. Yet now he sees something new; a weariness that hasn’t always been there. Her fingers tap on the table, a familiar nervous habit, then she sighs. 

“We try to help, try to make things better, but they never are. The world is on fire and there’s no way to put it out. What they’re doing in Syria...they’ll keep doing it. We won’t change that….”

“Boss… Andy…” Booker interrupts her. “I want it to stop…” A look of indescribable sadness crosses her face. Andy stares past Booker, looking at nothing, and he knows she’s lost in the past. When she shifts her gaze back to him her eyes are shining with tears. 

“It never does. At least not when we want it to.” Her eyes get that far away look again. Lykon. Booker knows she’s thinking about the one of them who was actually allowed to go. Then there’s the one she lost before Booker arrived. The one she loved. Andy slams her fist down onto the table and now her face is angry, as if she resents him forcing her to confront the very futility of their existence. “You know this, Book. You KNOW it.” 

Andy grabs the bottle and pours another drink. She drains it just as quickly as the first then shakes her head. Booker watches her, unable to find the words to tell her he never chose this, that if he’s been given the choice he would have chosen death.

“You didn’t have us to help you, to guide you. I will never forgive myself for not getting to you sooner, for not being there to help you make sense of things, to help you let go before you got hurt.” 

Booker squeezes his eyes shut and unbidden tears leak from their edges. The regret he lives with sharpens in his chest. 

“But Booker, we can’t walk away. They’re bombing hospitals. You know we have to at least try. But honestly, Book, HONESTLY, between you and me, I don’t know if I can do this much longer. One more time. We help one more time.” 

Finally Booker finds his voice. “And then?”

Andy’s face is serious. She answers quickly, as if she’s been thinking about this. 

“Then we stop trying. Let the world burn, Booker. It’s not our job to save humanity from itself and we’ve been trying for too long. Fuck humanity.”

Booker almost sighs with relief. Andy raises her glass towards Booker. He smiles at her. For the first time in a long time he feels the turmoil of his soul still. 

“I just need it to end,” Booker says quietly. 

“Me too” 

They both know it never will. Still, it’s time for the world to go on without them. 

“Syria? Deal with the fucking Russians?” Andy asks with a half smile, her glass still raised. Booker picks his up and raises it towards her then brings it to his mouth, draining it in one gulp. The liquid burns down the back of his throat and up through his nose, a not-unpleasant, familiar sensation. Booker smacks his lips and sets the glass down with a clunk.

“Syria,” he repeats. Andy looks at him and the pain in her eyes is almost too much. She runs a hand through her short hair and lets out a sigh.

“We fight for what is right, Book. I just don’t know if there’s anything right left in this world. Either way, I still need you.”


	4. Chapter 4

Joe

It took Joe six months to learn Italian, back when they were still Yusuf and Nicolo. Even then it was mostly the dirty things Nicky whispered against his skin under moonlit night skies in the endless desert. It was still enough to tell Nicky he loved him and that was all that Joe had needed. They had close to an eternity for the rest. 

It had taken only a fortnight for him to stop killing Nicky over and over. 

They had used swords at first, two skilled fighters dancing around each other with nimble footwork, thrusting and blocking. When they realized there was no point to the dance they had both grown both intimate and brutal, hacking at each other like untrained schoolboys, bellies sliced open, skulls split like chunks of wood, bones cracked, poking through flesh, choking the life out of each other, beating each other with bare fists. The last time Joe had straddled Nicky as he hefted a giant rock and smashed it into Nicky’s forehead, splattering himself with blood and brains, thinking maybe this time..., then watched with no small amount of disappointment as Nicky’s body healed itself. He had picked up the bloodied rock and held it up, about to smash it into the other man’s head a second time when Nicky opened his eyes, stared up at him with an incredible look of sadness on his face and said, in broken Arabic, “I do not know why you hate me.” 

Joe had blinked. How could this man not know? He was a heathen, he wanted to destroy Joe’s people - _Yusuf’s people._ What kind of question was that? Joe had stared down at him, confused, those words ringing in his head...

_...I do not know why you hate me…_

...and realized he did not know either. Joe’s eyes explored the face of the man he was straddling, taking in his sharp nose, the beard, the curve of his mouth. He did not see the mongrel dog he’d been told was his enemy. He just saw another man, one he’d held as he died more times than he could count. Another man who had held him as well. Joe answered as honestly as he could given their circumstances being pawns in a war of ideology neither of them had instigated. 

“I do not know either.” 

Joe had rolled off Nicky, rocks digging into his knees as he pushed himself off great ground to stand above the man he’d been trying to kill for at least a fortnight. He’d held out his hand and Nicky had taken it, allowed himself to be pulled upright. There had never been a discussion of what to do next. The two men gathered their things and looked around them only to discover in their fervor to destroy each other they’d ended up somewhere in the desert. 

Nicky had said something in Italian, gesturing towards the road in the distance. Joe had nodded, not understanding the words but knowing that no matter where they went, they would go together. He’d moved to stand next to the other man, close enough to see the blood drying on his tunic, to scan his skin for evidence of their battles. Nicky had not flinched or pulled away. He had only looked at Joe. Then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world he’d lifted a hand and smoothed one of Joe’s curls from his forehead and that was the moment Joe knew he’d never willingly leave this man’s side. 

It had taken too long for him to taste Nicolo for the first time. 

They had camped on the outskirts of Tripoli for the night. In the morning they would continue making their way to Jerusalem, but that night would be for rest and food. Joe said he would go into the city, but he would need to leave Nicky at the camp explaining in his own language that a blue-eyed Italian soldier speaking broken Arabic in a ragged and ripped crusader’s tunic would draw too much attention. When Nicky looked even more confused Joe tried again, this time in the broken bits of Italian he’d picked up over the last few weeks and wild hand gestures that made his companion smile warmly. 

“We just need food, not trouble,” Joe explained despite knowing Nicky wouldn’t understand.

“Take care, Yusuf,” Nicky had said in Joe’s mother tongue, putting his hand on his shoulder. It was a boiling day with heat blazing from both the sun and sand yet Nicky’s hand burned hotter than both. Their eyes had locked and Joe felt a shiver of something undefinable crawl up his spine just as Nicky said something Joe didn’t quite catch in Italian. 

Tripoli was loud and chaotic. A million sounds assaulted Joe as he walked through her gates. After weeks on the road the noise and chaos were dizzying. The whole city smelled of animal dung and overripe humans crowded too closely together. He had stood for a long moment just inside her walls, his eyes sweeping back and forth, overwhelmed by the mayhem of so many living beings stuffed into one place. He’d grown up in a village near the sea, a quiet place, and this chaos felt foreign to him. 

After getting his bearings, Joe had found the market easily. All he needed to do was follow the stream of people and merchants. He smelled cooking meat and spices that reminded him of home. Dealers hawked food and various items from their stalls, yelling out for Joe to spend the precious coin in the small leather pouch he‘d clutched tightly in his hand. Women brushed by him with baskets heavy with fruits. 

First Joe purchased a Djellaba made of rough homespun cloth and a pair of traditional sherwal. Nicky would draw less attention if they ditched his tunic. Another stall yielded sweet dried dates warmed by the sun and thick yellow honey on the comb wrapped in waxed cloth. A third brought him bazin and roasted mutton. Finally a skein of spiced wine. They’d been foraging for their meals for weeks and now Joe would return with his coins spent but bearing a feast. His heart quickened as he passed back through the walls, walking back towards the ridge where he’d left Nicky, and he smiled to himself as he thought of the bounty he bore and the smile that Nicky might grace him with. The ground was rocky and would offer little comfort that night but their bellies would be full and if they were careful there would be enough for a few more days after. 

It wasn’t a long walk back to where he’d left Nicky but it was made longer by the late afternoon sun that had yet to shed its harshness. Sweat dripped down the side of Joe’s face, tickling his neck, dampening his own Djellaba. The ground was slippery with loose stones as he climbed up the ridge that hid their camp from sight. He crested it then stopped and stared at the scene before him. 

Nicky sat on a large rock, his tunic stripped off and crumpled in his hand. He was using it to oil his sword, wiping the blade, each stroke long and careful, as if it were some great treasure. Joe took that moment to watch this man who had become his traveling companion. Nicky was far from the strongest soldiers sent against Joe’s people. He had seen truly monstrous men bearing down on him, screaming with a fervor his own people matched. Nicky’s chest wasn’t broad, his shoulders weren’t remarkable compared to those of other men. He was, all things considered, a normal man. Yet In that moment Joe found him truly extraordinary in a way that stole his breath and made his groin ache.

Joe knew that men would sometimes enjoy the company of other men. He had seen sweet, soft young men sitting at the feet of rich men, had watched men penetrate other men in the bath house of his small village, but this was not the same. That was sex, gratification, the right of men to take what they want. This… this feeling… it was something altogether different and foreign. If it had been any other time, any other man, Joe would have ignored how Nicky stirred him, walked away, courted one of the girls from the village with their dark eyes and soft mouths. It is not another time. Joe had died more times than he can count and still his heart continued to beat, blood still flowed in his veins. If he cannot die, if this gift can grace him and Nicky, who was he to say what else might abound? Who was he to say that another blessing might be the way Joe felt as he watches Nicky’s body. It was a soft and sweet swelling that made his throat contract followed by a tight clench in his chest. It left his mouth dry, as if he was parched in the desert, and robbed him of words. The feeling pooled in his belly and left him warm and aching. He had no words for the feeling. Not yet. 

Nicky had looked up from his task as if he could sense Joe. Joe startled and moved, almost tripping as the other man rose and greeted him with a string of Italian. Joe had carefully made his way down the slope covered in loose shale and dirt. He had barely dropped his bag of food and clothing on the ground before Nicky was on him, hands sliding down his arms, fingers frantically skimming across his chest looking for injuries, blue eyes filled with worry, as if he’d forgotten that neither of them could die. Joe shivered at his touch and he could feel the warmth of Nicky’s bare skin so close to him. Tears stung his eyes at Nicky’s worry and care, and all he wanted to do was tell him that he was safe and unmolested, that no one had tried to hurt him. Joe sucked in a deep breath and opened his mouth, 

“I am…” 

Joe paused for a moment, searched his limited Italian. He frowned and screwed up his eyes, trying to find the right word. 

“Si, Yusuf?” Nicky frowned, his forehead creasing just as Joe landed on a word that might convey what he wanted to say. 

“...alive?” 

It was far short of what he could accomplish in his mother tongue. A look of relief passed over Nicky’s face followed by a laugh. 

“Ah, Yusuf. But you cannot...die.” 

To this day, hundreds of years later, Joe can still hear the sound of that laugh. It was bright and relieved all at once. He can still remember the sudden realization that came rushing in like a tsunami; that the strange feeling in his chest was love for this stranger, his fellow being who could not die, for this blessing that had found him. For Nicky. 

Mostly he remembers that Nicky had leaned towards him and kissed him. It was a soft, almost tentative press, a scratch of bushy overgrown beard and mustache, a whiff of musk and desert heat, a hand lightly clasped around around his bicep. 

Joe had moaned and kissed him back. He’s tasted Nicky countless times since and each time it is always the same ambrosia. 

He tastes him now, in the dim light of the dingy safehouse bedroom, kissing him long and sweetly, before he releases his mouth, delighting in how Nicky always chases him. He buries his face in the crook of Nicky’s neck and whispers an ancient poem in Arabic against his skin. He can feel Nicky half hard against his thigh, feel his cum, sticky and drying between their bellies, yet he still wants more. There will be no more bedroom doors they can close after tonight. Not until the end of the mission, and even though they’re only supposed to be out four days, missions can go wrong. 

Wei will drop them in Syria tomorrow. Two clicks from the meeting point with Book’s contact. Fucking Syria. They’ve been there too many times in the last few years and too many of those times have gone poorly. 

Joe is always jumpy, uncomfortable in his skin, the night before they leave on a mission. It’s been centuries yet he will never stop hating watching Nicky die, unable to stop that small prick of fear that grips him as he waits to see if Nicky will wake up.

“Something’s off with Book.” 

Joe can feel Nicky’s words rumble in his chest as Nicky cards his fingers through Joe’s curls. It’s a soothing, familiar feeling almost as familiar the feel time itself. Joe smiles against Nicky’s skin at this thought. As if they could feel time. It’s just something they’re subjected to. Yet the feeling of Nicky’s fingers in his hair is truly timeless. He’d woven his fingers through his hair that day so many lifetimes ago as he had kissed Joe again and again, until they were both gasping. 

“Somethings always off with that French bastard,” Joe says, turning his head to rest his cheek on Nicky’s shoulder. His eyes start to flutter shut as he enjoys the feeling of Nicky’s fingers in his hair. 

“No,” Nicky says quietly. “It’s not just Booker. It’s Andy too.” 

Joe does not answer. Fear rises in his throat. Andy is the glue that holds them together. He cannot think about what Nicky’s words portend. Joe needs to push the feelings away, to seek distraction. He lifts his head and looks at his lover then smiles. 

“Fuck me one more time?” 

“Is that what you need, Yusuf Al-Kaysani?” 

Warmth and happiness never fail to flood Joe’s chest whenever Nicky uses his oldest name. 

“Always, Nicolo. Always.”


	5. Chapter 5

Nicky

Nicolo di Genova had once believed in miracles. All the miracles: healings, water into wine, defeating demons. 

At the age of ten his own miracle happened when an angel had visited him and told him that God was calling his name, and he was meant to follow and to dedicate his life to the Lord Jesus Christ. He had fallen to his bony preadolescent knees, a prayer on his lips, and had promised to do the Lord’s work until his last breath. When his mama had smiled at her sweet boy and told him to save himself for a good wife, Nicolo would smile back and tell her that he would never have a wife.

At the age of fourteen, Nicolo went to the studium generale in Napoli. He went to learn from the greatest teachers Italy had to offer, and to pledge his heart and soul to the Lord. 

At the age of 20 he had become a priest. 

At the age of 32 he had stopped believing in miracles. Nicolo left the priesthood, left God behind and had gone to fight the heathens in foreign lands. 

The crusades were where he learned to believe in miracles again. 

The first miracle had been the moment when he opened his eyes and realized he wasn’t dead; the moment when his breath came back into his body with a sharp gasp and Nicky glanced down at his chest to see that his tunic was torn but the wreck of bone and flesh that was his last memory before the world went black had all but disappeared. He was so busy feverishly patting at his chest, his mind frantically trying to make sense of what was happening that he missed the gold inlaid saber that sliced across his jugular, a fine mist of blood spraying from his neck as he fell towards the ground. The last thought in his head as he plunged back into the darkness of death was that it was a short-lived miracle. Then he’d woken again. 

The second miracle was the man who has been by his side for the last 900 years. 

Nicky learned quickly after that first saber strike that was a strange intimacy to dying. Most people don’t know that because they die only once. Maybe it was because he had held the heathen as he died more times than he could count. He had held him enough time to memorize his features, from the curve of his lips to his deep brown eyes staring up at Nicky as the light left them. He’d held him enough to see that he was beautiful and although Nicky knew he should not be stirred by this man, he still was. Then the man would wake with a jerk and a gasp, and Nicky would feel a dagger slide into his back, sending a shock of pain through his body, and they would start the dance all over again. They killed each other over and over until one day they found themselves in the middle of the desert, no one around, Nicky on the ground staring up at the heathen who was brandishing a rock and about to smash it into his skull, and only one thought running through Nicky’s head. 

_...Beautiful_

Nicky had almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of his thoughts, which surely would have brought that rock crashing down on him. 

The beauty of other men was something that had not escaped Nicky before that particular day. He had always found the shape and feel of men comely. There had been boyhood games, kisses stolen under the docks of Genoa, the smell of old fish and brine filling his nostrils, the sounds of the fishermen shouting above as they brought in the day’s catch. For most those types of childish pursuits were outgrown when thoughts turned to marriage or apprenticeships or the priesthood. For Nicky those feelings had never fully faded. He did not indulge as often or as freely as he did when he was young, but his thoughts did wander now and then to the curve of a fellow priest’s bottom lip and what it might be like to kiss it, just as he’d kissed those boys under the docks.

Then there was Azzo. 

He was young and beautiful and Nicky had loved him more than he should have. Sometimes he’d thought more than the Lord he’d devoted his life to, and the thought had ripped his heart in half. When they burned him for the sin of sodomy, Nicky had gone back to his bed in the small church he’d been at for the last three years, the bed he’d shared with Azzo, and sobbed until he had no voice. For years after Azzo’s screams would echo in his dreams. 

Still, that was not what broke him. That was not what shredded his belief in the Church into tatters or what made him remove his clerical robes and burn them in the fireplace. It was not what caused him to pick up a sword, to feel its weight in his hands, and decide that he would spill the blood of the heathens until there was none left. 

What made Nicky turn away from God was that he was allowed to live while Azzo was not. 

The Church knew of his sodomy and they murdered Azzo while letting him live. They let him live because his parish tithed and their coin lined the church's coffers. They did not care about the sin of sodomy if it meant the got richer and more powerful. Azzo was worthless to the church. Nicky was not. 

Years later Joe would tell Nicky he thanked the heavens for the hypocrisy of the Church that spared the man who would be the love of his life. He immediately withdrew his gratitude when Nicky’s eyes had grown sad and far away, and Joe had to kiss away the tears on his lover’s cheeks. 

Yes, the beauty of men was not something that escaped Nicky in the least, which is why he saw not just hatred and anger on the face of the man straddling him but deep soulful eyes ringed with dark lashes, beautiful curls laying damp against the brown skin of his strong neck.. Nicky knew he should hate this man but he did not. Maybe they had killed each other enough to move past the hatred others had taught them to have for each other. Instead of reaching for his sword, Nicky had reached into his memory, had dug up the limited Arabic he’d learned in Napoli, stared up at the other man and said aloud the thought that had been plaguing him as they had started brutalizing each other. 

“I do not know why you hate me.” 

The other man stilled. After a long moment he rolled off Nicky and stood, brushing dirt off his tunic. Nicky scrambled to his feet as well, squinted into the blazing sun above then looked around. Somehow they’d ended up in the middle of nowhere. Nicky shaded his eyes and peered into the distance. 

“A road. I can see a road. Maybe there’s a village.” 

Nicky turned to find the other man looking at him quizzically. He took a step towards him, then another, until they stood inches apart. The other man examined him, his eyes moving from Nicky’s face to the tunic that the gold inlaid saber had ripped through time and time again, now crusted with blood, to Nicky’s hands, calloused from wielding his sword. Nicky raised one of those hands and in a brazen moment of intimacy his fingers brushed a stray damp curl from the other man’s forehead. 

“Nicolo di Genova.” Nicky paused. He pointed at his chest. The one the heathen had cleaved with a discarded battle axe not long ago as they had pummeled each other while tripping over dead bodies left to rot in the battlefield, grabbing whatever weapons they could find. The one where his still-alive heard now beat quick and hard. “Nicolo. I am Nicolo.” 

The other man’s face brightened with understanding. He smiled the first smile Nicolo had ever seen from him. Nicolo sucked in a breath. That smile…

“Yusuf Al-Kaysani,” the man who Nicky had only thought of as “the heathen” said, pointing at his own chest. “Yusuf. I am Yusuf.” 

And that is how Nicky learned the name of his second miracle. 

That miracle now lies sleeping next to him, pressing against his back, arm slung over his waist, fingers gripping his hip. Joe always wants to fuck a lot before a mission. Nicky always prays. Joe asked him why once. Why does he pray when he hasn’t believed in centuries? 

“I still believe a little,” Nicky had answered. There wasn’t much else to say. 

Nicky shifts carefully. Sometimes Joe doesn’t wake gracefully. Too many ambushes. Too many enemies. If Nicky moves too quickly he risks Joe’s arm clamping around him while Joe shoves his hand free under the mattress to pull out the loaded gun they always sleep with. Once Andy had woken Joe by accident. It had not ended well. It is best not to wake Joe. 

He slowly slides himself from between Joe’s arms and sits up on the edge of the bed, his bare feet on the cold floor, the cool night air hitting his sweaty, sticky skin. Behind him Joe shifts a little, mumbles something in Italian, then settles further into the bed. Nicky never tires of hearing his lover speak his native tongue. It’s a gift that Joe has given him over and over for centuries. 

Standing and stretching, Nicky hunts for clothes. They will leave for Syria tomorrow with only the clothes on their back and one change for the end of the mission. He pulls on the same sweatpants Joe had tossed across the room hours earlier then picks up one of Joe’s t-shirts. Nicky pauses for a moment, the fabric crumpled in his hand, then he buries his face in its softness and inhales. It smells of Joe. It smells the same way Joe has smelled forever. The same way he smelled that day when they’d camped outside Tripoli. Nicky remembers how he had paced, steeped in worry and fear, unable to shake the unease that had gripped him since the man he then knew as only Yusuf had left him in the desert. It was the first time he’d been left alone during their travels and all he could imagine was Joe being hurt or even worse, Joe never returning. So when he had looked up and saw Joe standing framed by the evening sun, his bag full, a smile in his face, Nicky had run to him, touched him as he looked for wounds, inhaled his scent, then touched his lips to the other man’s over and over, whispering ‘bello’ between each kiss. Because Joe was unhurt. Because Joe had come back. 

Nicky still loves the way Joe smells. 

He pulls the T-shirt over his head and very quietly opens the door, slips through, then shuts it softly. Like a mouse, Nicky thinks to himself. 

Andy is exactly where he thought she’d be; slouched in one of the kitchen chairs, boots propped on the table, the half full bottle of whisky from earlier now almost empty. She looks up as Nicky sits down across from her. 

“You’re leaving.” 

It’s a statement of fact, not a question. Andy frowns at Nicky’s words then tosses him a look of annoyance. 

“God damn it all to hell, Nicky. How did you know?” 

Nicky smiles. “I was not born yesterday.” 

Andy takes the bait. “No, that’s Booker.” 

They both laugh. An old joke. Part of their rhythm as a team. No, their rhythm as a _family_. Nicky’s heart clenches in his chest. 

“Joe will be pissed.” Nicky hates how this will hurt his sweet, romantic Joe. 

“I know. And you won’t be?” 

“I will be sad… I AM sad. What will we do without you?’

Andy’s mouth twists. “No more useless saving the world bullshit when the world doesn’t want to be saved?” 

“Andy…”

“Finally make a home with Joe, fuck every night, cook dinner….”

“Andromache,” Nicky chastises, “You know we can’t do that.” She knows she should not even talk of such things. 

Andy looks at him with plaintive eyes, “I can’t do it anymore, Nicky. Please….” Her words trail off but Nicky knows what she was going to say. 

_...Do not try to stop me…_

He won’t. Booker might. Joe would. Not Nicky. He knows there is something bigger than the four of them that moves the universe. Nicky knows there are miracles but sometimes the path is unclear. He reaches out and rests his hand on Andy’s. 

“Just… just come back,” he manages despite his throat feeling thick with tears. 

Andy nods and Nicky sees rare tears in her warrior eyes. 

“Okay.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Today...Syria**

Andy

_...I’m so fucking tired of living…_

The contact is late. Andy looks back up at the sky. One more hour. They’ll wait one more hour. Wei is going to pick them up in four days and they have no time to waste. If Book’s contact doesn’t come through they’ll have to come up with a different way to get into the Khmeimim Air Base. She glances back to where Nicky and Joe are crouched next to each other, neither saying a word, their knees touching. She looks over at Book standing next to her, carrying all his worries and doubts silently. Andy is struck by these people who have become her family. Struck by how they will follow her and trust her when they shouldn’t. 

Just then a small cloud of dust appears on the horizon. Andy smiles. Seems their contact is showing up after all. Andy shifts and feels the weight of her axe on her back. She spits into the sand then glances back at the three men behind her and motions with her head. It’s showtime. Time to try to make one last dent in the carnage of a world gone mad. 

Joe greets the driver of the beat-up Toyota in Arabic, as Andy glances at the ground, studying a pile of pebbles intently until money has changed hands. The driver motions towards the other three and Andy picks up the dusty black backpack full of C4, feeling the grip of her Glock dig into her ribs as she bends over, her labrys heavy on her back. She follows Joe and Nicky into the bed of the truck, Booker right behind her. Andy pulls up the scarf around her neck to cover her mouth and nose as the truck’s engine rumbles to life and it jerks forward, kicking up more goddamn sand. 

They bump across the desert for what feels like an eternity until the dirt covered pickup screeches onto the highway and heads towards Latakia.

They spend the night on a bombed out home on the edge of the city, indelible evidence of the civil war that still raged on. Andy has told the boys to get some sleep, reminding them that they would need it. Now she sits in the darkness with her back against a crumbling wall, staring at the figures huddled around her. Joe wrapped around Nicky. Nicky’s hand resting on his gun. Booker muttering unintelligible French in his sleep. Her eyes feel damp. She wipes at them with the back of her hand. Andromache of Scythia doesn’t cry. She was alone for centuries. She can be alone again. 

The next morning they all scoff down disgusting tasting, overly sweet energy bars. Nicky says he misses coffee. Book laughs and says he misses brandy. Andy stands across the room watching them. She sees Booker flash a rare smile, watches how Joe touches Nicky, and she misses them already. Andy closes her eyes and pushes away the growing feeling of regret. 

_...This is the right thing…_

They clean their guns. Andy counts the C4 one more time. Joe pulls out one of his notebooks out of a pocket and starts sketching. The sun climbs higher and higher in the sky. Missions are like this. Days of preparing only to wait and wait. Andy tips her head back against the wall, closes her eyes and remembers. Lykon. Quynh. Always Quynh. 

The sound of tires on gravel startles Andy. She stands and glances at Booker, Nicky and Joe. They are pulling on their backpacks, strapping their swords to their sides, hoisting their guns. There is no talking. Andy doesn’t need to give directions or reminders. Centuries together have made them move together like ancient dancers, everyone knowing their part, every movement precise. She nods then ducks through the doorway and blinks as her eyes adjust to the sunlight. One after the other they climb into the back of the covered truck and squat behind crates of vegetables. The truck roars to life and rolls forward. They’re on their way. 

They get through the gates at the base without a hitch. The four of them slide out of the back of the truck and slink into the shadows. Andy grips her Glock as the team silently makes their way across the base, Booker in the lead. His job was to memorize the layout of the base, to get them from the kitchen to a maintenance shed behind the hanger for the SU-57s. When they get there Joe keeps watch while Andy picks the lock to the shed. She turns her head and nods when the latch clicks. They slide inside, one after the other. Joe roots around in his backpack and pulls out a pair of binoculars then peers through a crack in the door that offers a view of the security patrols as they walk by. 

“1315,” Joe whispers, handing his sketchbook and pencil to Nicky. Nicky scribbles it down. Andy wonders what someone might see if they had a chance to peer into that notebook. She imagines sketches of places they’ve been, Nicky awake, Nicky sleeping, scratches of notes from various missions. Every time Joe gets a new sketchbook they burn the old one, and every time Andy can tell it hurts. 

“1345.” 

Another scribble. 

The minutes tick by slowly, blending into hours. The sun starts to slide lower in the sky and the light shifts from that bright afternoon glare into the warm glow of evening. Soon it will slip behind the hills and they will slide out from their hiding place and get to work. 

“1730.”

Another scribble. 

Nicky leans against Joe. 

Booker traces something in the dirt. 

Andy wipes the sweat from her brow. 

Their contact will meet them outside the gate at 0200. Wei picks them up three clicks outside the city in the early dawn. 

Joe slides a page from his notebook towards Andy. She picks it up and squints in the dim light, trying to read Nicky’s chicken scratch. 

_....Patrols every 20-30 minutes…one soldier on the field..._

Her eyes move down the list. 

_...Three SU-57s..._

What Andy reads next makes her heart stop. 

_....33 planes total…_

God damn it. 

They have enough C4 for the SU-57s. Not for 30 more planes. No matter what they do, tomorrow the Russians will bomb more hospitals, more civilians. Andy drops her head, stares at the floor of the shed. She feels tears sting her eyes. They came here for what? Nothing. Fucking nothing. 

They will blow up the SU-57s. They are the most fucking expensive technologically advanced machines they have. It will be a hit, and at least get those planes out of the skies for a while. But it won’t save enough lives. 

_....so fucking tired...so fucking done…_

A patrol drifts by at 01:15. Andy wants a drink, a fucking cigarette. She wants to not be here, to be somewhere else where she can wake up to a bottle and not to the pressure to save a world that cannot be saved. Joe signals her when the patrol is out of sight. She makes a pssst sound with her teeth, jerking Booker awake from where he’d fallen asleep against one of the walls of the shed. Andy looks over at Nicky and tilts her head towards the door. They all pull on their black balaclavas leaving only their eyes exposed. Go time. 

One by one they creep out into the open, their black clothes blending into the night. Silently they make their way towards where the fighters are parked. Andy motions to Booker. He understands and breaks off from the group, veering to the right. A few moments later there is a ‘thwak’ followed by a soft thud, and Andy knows the soldier left patrolling the area is now on the ground, a bullet in his head. She glances at her watch. 25 minutes left. 

The three remaining split up. One for each plane. Andy slides under the belly of one of the giant planes. The air smells of metal and jet fuel. Up close the SU-57 is enormous. They look so much smaller high up in the sky, their roars making children cover their ears and run for safety, invading their dreams even years later. She works quickly, climbing up under the belly of the plane, packing the C4 into the wheel well. Andy pulls out the wires and the timer mechanism, sucking in a deep breath, trying to will her heart to slow its frantic pace. This is not the time for mistakes. If she doesn’t get this right it will leave enough evidence that could lead the Russians back to the four of them. The last thing any of them need is years being tortured by Russian scientists eager to unlock the secrets of their mortality. Quynh was put into a box and left to die over and over again, and Andy made a promise to herself after that no one under her watch would suffer the same fate. 

She glances over at Joe and signals to him ‘ten minutes’, then looks over at Nicky and gives him the same signal. Then she holds her hand up and counts with her fingers. One. Two. Three. At three all three of them turn on the timer mechanism and set them to ten minutes. Booker slips next to her. 

“Ready?” he whispers. Andy nods. She glances over at Joe and Nicky one more time and nods. They all push the buttons on their timers then they run. Andy pumps her arms, works her legs, her Glock gripped tightly in her hand. Booker leads them back through the base. Left. Right. Right again. This time it doesn’t matter if they’re seen. Anyone who sees them will be dead. All they need to worry about is getting away, and that’s always the easiest part of the mission. Luckily it's quiet and they somehow don’t run into any patrols as they make their way from building to building, stopping the lurk in the shadows only briefly before running to the shelter of the next building. Finally they get to the perimeter fence and Andy can see the beat up Toyota idling there. At least this time he’s on time. She glances at her watch. 2 minutes to go. Andy pushes ahead of Booker and scales the fence. He follows her, then Nicky and last Joe. The four of them tumble into the truck and it skids on sand and rocks as it speeds off into the night. Andy looks at her watch again. One more minute. It feels like an hour since they sprinted away from the jets. 30 seconds. Joe and Nicky’s hands clasp together, fingers entwined. Andy aches watching them. She’s going to miss them. 15 seconds. Booker stares into the distance seeing nothing, his face sad. 

BOOM. 

Andy glances behind her and in the distance she can see a huge fireball rise into the air, lighting up the night sky. Take that, mother fuckers, she thinks. As if they care. She turns her head and stares out into the night as they disappear into the darkness, and once again she tastes sand, feels the grit of it in her mouth. Fucking sand. 

**One week later...Morocco**

Andy sets her bag next to the table that sits in the middle of the cavernous warehouse. One side of the warehouse is piled with rugs and antiquities of questionable origins, the other side is piled with bricks of cocaine waiting to be packed into crates labeled pomegranates to be sent over the water to Europe. The shipment to Spain leaves tomorrow and so do Joe, Nicky and Booker. 

Not Andy. 

They’ve been sleeping on the floor since they arrived from Syria, waiting until they could head back to Europe. Joe is sitting on the floor, his back leaning on the wall, sketching. His brow furrows with concentration. Nicky and Book are sitting at the table playing cards, a pile of crumpled bills between them. A book lies open next to Nicky and Andy knows he’d been reading until Book had convinced him to lose a little money. Next to the book is a half full bottle of mahia. 

“Boys,” Andy says, sliding into a chair. She grabs the bottle and chugs a few generous swallows. She grimaces at its sweetness. Three pairs of eyes turn towards her. Andy swallows. She looks from face to face, committing each to memory. She opens her mouth to say what she's been dreading. 

“I’m not going with you tomorrow.” 

“Andromache!” 

“Why?” 

“I can’t do this anymore.” 

The day after they blew up the fighter jets another hospital had been bombed. The Russians had claimed a munitions dump blew up. ’Fucking Russians’, Booker had muttered when Andy told him.

“Dammit, Andy,” Joe swears, his sketch book dropping to the floor as he stands up. Nicky stands at the same time and crosses to him. Andy sees his hand reach for Joe, sees it come to rest lightly on Joe’s arm. Joe’s face is pale, his eyes glassy with tears. 

“For how long?”

“Joe...” Andy starts, then, “Yusuf..” The name he’d had when she found him long ago. 

Joe swears in Arabic as Nicky’s hand rubs his forearm. “A week? A month.” 

“Book,” Andy’s eyes move to the Frenchman who looks back at her with understanding. He shrugs. 

“Your choice, boss.” 

Andy looks back at Joe. He deserves the truth. “I… I don’t know. I can’t do this. I can’t keep doing the same thing over and over when nothing changes.” 

“And what about us?” 

Andy shrugs. “You’ll be okay.” It's the truth. Nicky and Joe have each other. Book has a lifetime of sadness. Andy being there changes nothing. “Find a beach. Fuck a lot.”

“No!” Joe spits out angrily. “You’re our family. We will not be okay without our fucking family. Were you okay all those years without Quynh?...”

Andy winces at her lost lover’s name. Her chest hurts. 

“...Before you found us?” 

“Please...” Andy whispers. She has killed more people than she can count, without blinking an eye, yet it’s Joe’s pleading that rips her to shreds. 

“I need it to stop.” Andy’s voice sounds strangely small. She’s stuck. She can’t stay but she can’t go without hurting the people she loves most. Andy closed her eyes, wills away the pain. 

“One year.” Andy startles at the sound of Nicky’s voice. She shifts her gaze to him just as he lets go of Joe, patting him reassuringly on the arm. Andy sees Joe’s face soften. Something inside her unravels just a little. Nicky walks up to Andy and without a word he folds her into his arms and she sags against him. 

“Forgive him. He loves you. I love you too, Andy.” Nicky whispers in her hair in Lingurian, a language he only uses on occasion, the one he grew up speaking in Genoa. Andy holds back a sob. 

“I love you too, Nicolo,” she whispers back, her words muffled in his thin, soft tee. “Thank you.” Nicky leans back and looks at her, plants a kiss on her forehead, then releases her. He turns to look at Joe and Booker. 

“Rome. We meet one year from now in Rome.” 

Andy looks around. Joe’s mouth is pinched and his eyes are sad but he still nods his acceptance. Booker looks at her as if he knows this will fix nothing. His arms are crossed over his chest. His eyes haunted. He nods at her too. 

“Okay,” Andy says, and suddenly she’s scared. She’s been alone before but not in a long time. She glances up and sees Nicky watching her. Their eyes meet and Nicky smiles, as if to say it will all be okay. Andy smiles. 

“Dream of me, boys,” she says as she picks up her bag and labrys, hoisting them onto her shoulder. She winks at them. “I know I’ll dream of you.” 

“Always,” Joe answers. 

“We really have no choice,” Booker points out. 

Andy ignores him. “And boys, when we meet in a year… gifts.” Now they all smile. “...oh, and Baklava.” 

Andy turns and walks towards the door to the outside world, unable to take more goodbyes, and pushes through into the warm Morrocan afternoon. She stares up at the sky for a long moment, then Andromache of Scythia leaks a rare and precious tear. Andy adjusts her labrys and starts walking towards god knows what. 

_...See you in a fucking year…_

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to toss me a kudo or comment. I don't bite but Joe does when he's feeling frisky.


End file.
